…that opposition to vaccination is nothing new. There has been fierce resistance to all forms since the process was discovered, with much debate about the dangers and benefits—as this cartoon from 1802 shows.
I ran across a particularly interesting incident in the early 19th century Massachusetts in which town leaders had twelve boys vaccinated and then put in isolation and monitored for any sign of smallpox for two weeks to demonstrate the safety of the process. Milton Massachusetts became the first down in the United States to offer free vaccination to all its citizens. They touted its safety publically, giving “praise to the Almighty Giver.” This is the public notice:
This appeared in an article in the Smithsonian Magazine. The word vaccination comes from the Latin word for cow, because, as the article points out, vaccination was developed using live cowpox matter. Cowpox, a milder disease than smallpox itself, was safer to use and just as effective. Inoculation with actual smallpox, which existed in China for centuries, was called variolation. Vaccination—and public resistance to it—play a role in The Price of Glory. Watch for it in July.